Charging from a vehicle...

[Delarado]

When you put your batterys on to charge from a car, do you run the engine as you charge? Should you? Or should you not?

I know a car battery sits about 14v at idle so dont want to mess my charger up. At the same time I Dont want to be unable to start the car after charging a battery!

I want to charge optipower 6s 3000mah.

[acidla]

A friend is charging his 3s 2200mAh from the battery car, without the engine running and he makes about 3-4 charges.
It aslo depends from the condition of the car battery.

[BigBadDom]

The ideal of course is to own enough lipos to not need to charge at the flying field, but that can come expensive! If you do need to charge with a car battery, do so with the engine off. I would suggest that after charging 2-3 lipos in a row, that it would make sense to start the car and let its alternator put some of that charge back into your car battery so you don't have any issues getting your car started at the end of the day.

Always make sure your lipos have cooled post use before charging as well.

Cheers
Dom

[Gixxer]

A 12V charger shouldn't have a problem at 13.8V, and I'd rather use a little petrol or diesel than flatten the battery.

I think lead acid batteries should be kept fully charged too.

[soggybongo]

I would be more concerned anout the lipo battery exploding within the engine compartment, if you have to charge you lipo's using your car battery extend the leads so the charger and lipo's are out of the engine bay and away from fuel lines. you wouldn't want this to happen Lipo explode - YouTube

[acidla]

Man, that is scary!

[p4ddy]

I screwed up a balancer because i was charging whilst driving. That was using an Ultamat 14 1-5s charger with the Prolux 2-4s balancer so i've never charged whilst the engines ruinning since.

[NoFixedAbode]

I know you can't with a pl8 it throughs up an error every time. I would feel safer with a leisure battery in boot and a split charge relay.

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[KnifeEdge]

I charge lipos on my fiesta. I
Used to charge 2 x 6S 5000mah (ie 12S pack) at 1.5C. No problems at all. Just used to idle it.

I can charge 6S 2700 opti without running the engine, about three times before I get the feeling I may be sleeping in the car overnight.

[MarkG_R1]

I've managed to avoid lipo explosion vids until now, They go up fair don't they :0

I should be ok to get 3 x 2200 3s packs charged off my 328i then,

The packs max charge rate is 5c but the accucell charger can do 6amp, would it be ok to charge at maximum rate?

[BigBadDom]

With your 2200mah cells, 1c charging would equate to 2.2amps on our charger. You say your cells are rated at 5c which means you could charge them at 11amps (2.2 x 5).

So if your charger is capable of 6amps it is effectively charging your 2200mah cells at 3.67c, which is well within the limits of your cells if they are 5c charge capable.

If you're not in a hurry to charge, I always charge at 1c. Gives the cell an easy life I reckon.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Dom


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[LaurenceGough]

I would never charge from my car battery as they are not built for charging batteries, unless you're just talking about RX packs or the one off 450 pack.

For 6S 3000mAh I wouldn't, most likely will be ok if you're car is idling but this isn't really a good way of doing things.

It would be better to invest in a lead acid battery, John on here gives them away for free if you can pick them up in Bracknell.

[Delarado]

What sort of thing Laurence? Can you link something, just so I can get an idea of what you mean?

Seems a bit silly to me taking a big heavy battery to charge batterys when you have a perfectly good one in the car? I Cant imagine a single lead acid battery will be light enough to carry and charge more than 2-3 packs before needing charging itself?

Thanks for the tip on John, I'm not sure who he is but if it does prove to be a worthwhile thing to do (Me picking up a lead acid) then I'll be sure to go see him and chuck him a few quid for being such a jolly good chap!

[Scooby1doo1]

I've managed to avoid lipo explosion vids until now, They go up fair don't they :0

I should be ok to get 3 x 2200 3s packs charged off my 328i then,

The packs max charge rate is 5c but the accucell charger can do 6amp, would it be ok to charge at maximum rate?

I wunt use your BM to charge, next door as a BM and as to charge his bat if he is running the laptop to find fault codes or recode.

Same with my old 530d battery went flat after leaving glove box open over night, having said that I was hovering the X out and giving it a clean and the doors was open for a good hr.

If I was a leki fan I wunt use the car to charge, that's why they sell genis.


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[ChrisB]

Very good auto electrician friend of mine told me it wasn't good long term practice to pull the sort of currents I would want to charge big packs fast at from a car,running or not.

If its a company car with company fuel who cares though,mine isn't so I would not do it.

Well any more I mean,my good old ex vectra 1.8 whiłe charging packs with engine running blew the diode pack on the alternator,this sent over current thru the cars electronics and within a month of my new alternator being fitted ecu and other components failed and I decided to scrap the car instead of fix it.

He knows his stuff,he says old cars with old style electrics maybe but anything modern with high levels of sensitive electronic systems you'd be insane.